Section 1

The maid was a young woman of great natural calmness; she was
accustomed to let in visitors who had this air of being
annoyed and finding one umbrella too numerous for them. It
mattered nothing to her that the gentleman was asking for Dr.
Martineau as if he was asking for something with an
unpleasant taste. Almost imperceptibly she relieved him of
his umbrella and juggled his hat and coat on to a massive
mahogany stand. "What name, Sir?" she asked, holding open the
door of the consulting room.

"Hardy," said the gentleman, and then yielding it reluctantly
with its distasteful three-year-old honour, "Sir Richmond
Hardy."

The door closed softly behind him and he found himself in
undivided possession of the large indifferent apartment in
which the nervous and mental troubles of the outer world
eddied for a time on their way to the distinguished
specialist. A bowl of daffodils, a handsome bookcase
containing bound Victorian magazines and antiquated medical
works, some paintings of Scotch scenery, three big armchairs,
a buhl clock, and a bronze Dancing Faun, by their want of any
collective idea enhanced rather than mitigated the
promiscuous disregard of the room. He drifted to the midmost
of the three windows and stared out despondently at Harley
Street.

For a minute or so he remained as still and limp as an empty
jacket on its peg, and then a gust of irritation stirred him.

"Damned fool I was to come here," he said..."DAMNED fool!

"Rush out of the place? . . .

"I've given my name." . . .

He heard the door behind him open and for a moment pretended
not to hear. Then he turned round. "I don't see what you can
do for me," he said.

"I'm sure _I_ don't," said the doctor. "People come here and
talk."

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There was something reassuringly inaggressive about the
figure that confronted Sir Richmond. Dr. Martineau's height
wanted at least three inches of Sir Richmond's five feet
eleven; he was humanly plump, his face was round and pink and
cheerfully wistful, a little suggestive of the full moon, of
what the full moon might be if it could get fresh air and
exercise. Either his tailor had made his trousers too short
or he had braced them too high so that he seemed to have
grown out of them quite recently. Sir Richmond had been
dreading an encounter with some dominating and mesmeric
personality; this amiable presence dispelled his preconceived
resistances.

Dr. Martineau, a little out of breath as though he had been
running upstairs, with his hands in his trouser pockets,
seemed intent only on disavowals. "People come here and talk.
It does them good, and sometimes I am able to offer a
suggestion.

"Talking to someone who understands a little," he expanded
the idea.

"I'm jangling damnably...overwork.. . . ."

"Not overwork," Dr. Martineau corrected. "Not overwork.
Overwork never hurt anyone. Fatigue stops that. A man can
work--good straightforward work, without internal resistance,
until he drops,--and never hurt himself. You must be working
against friction."

"Friction! I'm like a machine without oil. I'm grinding to
death. . . . And it's so DAMNED important I SHOULDN'T break
down. It's VITALLY important."